Painter and first historian of the Roman Baroque through two early art histories, a biography
of artists, Vite de’ pittori, scultori, architetti (1642), and a survey
of Roman churches, Le nove chiese di Roma (1639). Baglione
described himself as having descended a noble family from Perugia. In his
autobiography appended to his Lives of the Artists, Le vite, 1642,
Baglione claimed as well that he studied art under the painter Francesco Morelli in Rome.
He worked as a painter, employing a Caravaggesque style, and received numerous commissions. By 1600
Baglione was an Accademia di S Luca member. He brought a libel suit
against Caravaggio in 1603 for some verses supposedly written by him against
Baglione. Within that context Orazio
Gentileschi, a plaintiff in the suit, admitted Baglione a "first-class painter." Baglione was knighted in
1606. Between 1621 and 1622 he traveled to Mantua. In the 1630s, he began
compiling notes for his two art-historical works. Baglione published his first, Le nove
chiese di Roma, a discussion on the contemporary paintings and sculpture in
nine major Roman churches, with some references to ancient and medieval works,
in 1639. This alone might have secured him the sobriquet "First historian of the
Roman Baroque" (Pace), because Le nove chiese is more than a devotional
guidebook for pilgrims, the genre of the period. His more important work, Le vite de’ pittori, scultori & architetti, a
biography of artists, appeared in 1642 in Rome, containing biographies of more
than 200 artists who worked in Rome between 1572 and 1642. A second edition with
an expanded section on the achievements of Pope Urban VIII was issued, also in
Rome, in 1649. Subsequent editions were issued from Naples in 1733, 1739 and
1743.

Le nove chiese di Roma was, in the words of Roberto Longhi (q.v.), the "first
strictly artistic guide of the churches of Rome." It's importance today is the
snapshot it gives of Roman churches which were all significantly altered.
Baglione's "guide" avoids religious discussion and hagiography and focuses on
the art and artists of the churches. Le vite de’ pittori, scultori & architetti became an important primary
source for 17th-century art in Rome. A broad-minded critic who avoided overly
theoretical discussions of many art biographies--unlike other biographers of the
period--he used his knowledge as a practicing artist to evaluate, often
singularly, the important stylistic transformations occurring at the time of his
writing. He limited the discussion of paintings to those viewable by the public
(with few exceptions) for readers to better appreciate his own criticism.
He praised Caravaggio, despite his legal disputes. His commentary included architecture and sculpture. Baglione's anecdotes on artist's lives--a necessary feature on biographies, then as
now--also provide insights on the realities of commissions and the conditions
for artistic success in the 17th century. In his own time Giovanni Pietro
Bellori (q.v.) used Baglinone's Vite for his book Le vite de’ pittori, scultori et
architetti moderni of 1672, though Bellori was jealous of Baglione's
authority accused him of having the work ghostwritten by the antiquarian Ottavio
Tronsarelli (d. 1646). Others using Baglione included Carlo Malvasia (q.v.) for his biographies
published beginning in 1678, Giovanni Battista Passeri (q.v.) for his work of 1678 and
in Spain, Antonio
Palomino de Castro y Velasco (q.v.) in his Museo pictorico y escala optica,
1715-1724. His work became an important source for modern art
historians studying his age, including Luigi Lanzi (q.v.), Girolamo Baruffaldi
(q.v.), Hermann Voss (q.v.), Jacob Hess (q.v.) and Anthony Blunt (q.v.). The
importance of his work is testified by the fact that a separate index to it
appeared in 1924 (Rome), a facsimile edition in 1935 (also Rome), and Hess'
commentary in 1995.